Electronic transparencies are gaining widespread commercial acceptance in applications requiring display of data from a computer to a large number of users. Instead of displaying the data on a conventional cathode ray tube monitor, the data is displayed on an LCD panel which is placed on an overhead projector. The light projected through the LCD panel is blocked by its darkened portions, forming a shadow image that is projected just as with conventional film transparencies. Commercially available versions of this product include the Eiki DD-1000, the Sharp QA-25, the nView ViewFrame, the Apollo PC-9000, the Computer Accessories Data Display, the Eastman Kodak DataShow, the Telex Magnabyte I-5120-I and a variety of units marketed by the assignee of the present invention.
While all of these devices have certain advantageous features, they all have several failings. One is that the devices must generally be operated in association with a computer.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide an electronic transparency that can be operated without an associated computer.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an electronic transparency that can be used by persons who are unfamiliar with computers.
It is a further object of the present invention to permit presentation of computer-generated slide shows without a computer and without a slide projector.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an electronic transparency with a memory in which a plurality of slide images can be stored.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an electronic transparency having the functionality of a stack of conventional film transparencies.
It is still another object of the present invention to remotely control the sequence of slides displayed by an electronic transparency.
It is yet another object of the present invention to permit electronic transparency presentations to be customized to different applications by substituting slides particular to one application with slides particular to a second application.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an electronic transparency that can operate autonomously to display a sequence of slides.
It is yet another object of the present invention to controllably obscure selected portions of an electronic transparency display.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an electronic transparency with an interactive user interface.
It is yet another object of the present invention to display a number with each slide in a sequence indicating that slide's position in the sequence.
It is still another object of the present invention to permit the aforesaid number to be displayed at any desired location on the slide.
It is yet another object of the present invention to permit a remotely controlled pointer to be selectably superimposed on a slide displayed by an electronic transparency.
It is still another object of the present invention to permit selected areas of a slide displayed by an electronic transparency to be highlighted.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, an electronic transparency is provided with a memory module into which a plurality of frames of video data ("stock slides") can be captured. The memory module includes a microprocessor which can present predefined sequences of these slides on the transparency's LCD panel automatically. These slide "shows" are defined by the user by selecting from options presented in menu fashion on the LCD panel. The user can specify, for example, the duration that each slide in a sequence is to be shown, the video transition by which it is to be introduced, the degree of "windowshading" with which it is to be displayed, etc. User interface with the menus is achieved through a hand held remote control unit. Once a show is defined, it can be instituted at the press of a button on the remote control unit and can thereafter proceed from screen to screen automatically.
The illustrated transparency also includes a pointer that can be superimposed on the display and controlled by the remote control unit. The pointer can be used to define certain areas of the screen that are to be highlighted by presentation in reverse video form. The memory module can be unplugged from the electronic transparency and transferred to other electronic transparencies as desired. A battery maintains the stock slide images and slide show definition data in memory even after external power is removed.
The foregoing and additional objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.